Notes on Hats
On hats and their symbolism:
From Dictionary of Symbols:
Hat
According to Jung, the hat, since it covers the head, generally takes on the significance of what goes on inside it: thought. He recalls the German saying ‘to put all ideas under one hat’, and mentions that in Meyrink’s novel The Golem, the protagonist thinks the thoughts and undergoes the experiences of another man whose hat he has put on by mistake (32).
Jung also points out that, since the hat is the ‘crown’ and summit of an individual, it may therefore be said to cover him, an idea which carries a special symbolic significance.
By its shape, the hat may be invested with specific significance; for example, that of the Minstrel in the Tarot pack (56). To change one’s hat is equivalent to a change of mind or of ideas.
The choice of a hat—associated with a particular social order—denotes the desire to be admitted to that set or to partake of its inherent characteristics.
There are hats, like the Phrygian cap, that have a special phallic significance, and others that can confer invisibility (symbolic of repression).
